Righteous Anger

 

1/16/22

John 2:13-25

Psalm 127:1-2

 

               Today we hear the story of Jesus chasing the money changers from the temple.  It is the strongest example we have of Jesus becoming angry and acting out of that anger.  And while we know and we understand that his anger was righteous anger, I am certain the people who were using the temple as a market did not feel the same way.  They saw his anger as an action of his claiming authority that he then failed (in their minds) to prove that he had a right to.  They in turn became angry, and I am certain that they, in turn, felt that their anger was righteous.  So how can we tell the difference?  How do we know when our anger is truly righteous or not?

               Anger is, almost always, a secondary emotion.  What that means is that it is a mask, or a cover, for a deeper primary emotion such as sadness or fear.  We may feel that sadness or fear are unacceptable, or “weak” so we move into anger as a result.  Sadness or weakness may hurt more, so that is another reason we move into anger.  When we look at the anger of the crowds in response to Jesus’ anger, we can see that their primary emotions were probably fear: fear of change, fear of being hurt as he was driving them out, fear of losing the income that their marketing in the temple was providing, fear of change.  They may also have been feeling guilt: which is also a primary emotion: guilt that he was calling them on their behavior, guilt that he was pointing out that what they were doing was wrong in God’s eyes, guilt that they hadn’t figured that out, addressed it, changed it themselves.  Their anger was not righteous anger for many reasons, but first of all because it was a cover up of these deeper feelings.

               So again, what is righteous anger?  Righteous Anger, according to many, involves three things: 1.  It reacts against actual wrongs: mistreatment, insult or malice of another.  Injustice towards others.  2.  Righteous anger focuses on God and on God’s concerns for the world.  It is not for one’s self: it is not about an offense towards you or something that personally offends you.  3.  Righteous anger is always self-controlled.  It does not retaliate or lose its temper.  It expresses itself in ways that are creative, that have purpose, and that change things for the better.  It is not destructive, abusive, withdrawing, passive-aggressive, or harming of anyone else.  It is not revenge, punishment or retaliation. 

Jesus’ anger was not for himself.  He was angry because their behavior did not honor God.  He didn’t care about the loss he, personally, would experience, in telling them to stop acting this way in the temple.  He did not focus on what it was costing him to point out their mistakes, their mis-steps.  His anger was righteous because it was inspired first and foremost by unjust behavior, and it was an expression of his care for God and God’s people.   The unjust behavior he was confronting was consistent, was long-standing, and again, did not affect him directly.  These are all signs of what makes anger righteous anger.  And his actions were about bringing positive change to the temple: no longer using it as a market but once again as a place of worship.  And even though it came out as angry, it was still controlled.  He did not injure people or animals in the process of chasing them out.   

I think as people we have a hard time with all of this.  We jump to anger easily in our culture, squashing down sadness, guilt or fear because we see these as weak or they are uncomfortable.  We jump to anger easily as a way to avoid self-reflection, too.  If we are angry, the problem is out there, and does not require us to look at ourselves to do the work within.  Even when we are angry on behalf of another person, our behavior often is retaliatory, punishing, revengeful, and an inability to hear any side other than the one we have chosen to hear is dangerous and damaging to relationships, to communities, and to the people who suffer our rage. 

But we are called to have compassion.  And that compassion has to start with compassion towards ourselves.  What are we afraid of?  What are we grieving?  Change is hard for all of us, and often the thing we fear is simply a change, a change we did not want, a change we did not anticipate.  The more our hearts are broken by something that has happened, is happening or will happen, the more we avoid those feelings of hurt and pain and opt for anger instead.

Parker J. Palmer wrote in  A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life, “There are at least two ways to understand what it means to have our hearts broken. One is to imagine the heart broken into shards and scattered about-a feeling most of us know, and a fate we would like to avoid. The other is to imagine the heart broken open into new capacity-a process that is not without pain but one that many of us would welcome. As I stand in the tragic gap between reality and possibility, this small, tight fist of a thing called my heart can break open into greater capacity to hold more of my own and the world's suffering and joy, despair and hope.”

But the challenge, of course, of coming into that place of openness is that it hurts.  And we don’t like to hurt.  Bryan Stevenson said that fear and anger, however, are the essential components of injustice.  They are the essential components of injustice.  We therefore have to be aware of the roots of our anger, the deep roots within ourselves of any anger.  And we have to be committed to dealing with it directly, creatively, and kindly.  Anger can become a habit.  And it is a dangerous habit to practice.  As Mitch Albom said in, “the Five People you Meet in Heaven” (p141)  “Learn this from me.  Holding anger is a poison.  It eats you from the inside.  We think that hating is a weapon that attacks the person who harmed us.  But hatred is a curved blade.  And the harm we do, we do to ourselves.”

Bishop Michael Curry took on the work of supporting LGBTQ clergy within the Episcopal denomination.  This did not go over well, and he experienced a lot of anger that came his way, anger that people believed was “righteous” because they believed they were speaking for God.  Again, they were not.  They were acting out their own fear of that which they did not understand.  And they were acting out their own sadness over the loss of control over a group of people.  He was attacked repeatedly, but he recognized that his own anger, his own righteous anger, would not be righteous if he was acting out of revenge, out of a desire to harm or punish those who had harmed and punished him.  He wrote, “My only challenge was learning how to receive anger and not give it back in return.  I needed to do something very difficult: to stand and kneel at the same time.  I needed to sand in my conviction, laying out what I believed and why.  And when the response was anger, I needed to learn to kneel before it.  Believe me, standing in self-righteousness is so much easier.  But when you’re facing someone else who feels as strongly in their conviction as you do, anger is totally unproductive.  Actually it’s counterproductive.  You’ve got to create space for the other person.  This is the dance of nonviolent change.  You develop the spiritual discipline of receiving and then letting go, receiving and letting go, receiving then letting go.  This isn’t easy and it’s even harder if the anger is coming at you from people you love and cherish, rather than strangers.  I found it helpful to remember a few things.  First, I wasn’t God.  No one is God.  And therefore, I was not the ultimate decider of who was right.  I could only do what I believed to be right as best I could discern it.  Second, this wasn’t about me, ultimately.  They weren’t angry at me, but at what I represented. … If you know your own purpose, you can stay out of the emotional fray your beliefs may stir up in others.  If I reacted in anger, I would add even more destructive anxiety to the situation.  I knew enough about human nature to know that a sense of safety, not anxiety, is what puts people in a space to open their hearts to change.  Third, I started intentionally praying for (those) who were speaking against me. I didn’t pray for them to change their minds.  I prayed for them as children of God.”

Anger is a feeling, and as such it is not “bad” in itself.  It is there to tell us there is work to be done.  However, usually that work to be done is internal and we have the job of remembering that to be so.  Anger is not bad.  But we must be very careful what we do with it.  And we need to be very aware that most of the time, our anger is not righteous anger.  Remember, righteous anger is addressing an injustice, it is not about you, and it never is acted out in retaliatory or damaging ways.  If we can remember this, it can help us to deal with it in healthier ways.

I think in the end, it helps to remember that all things pass.  We can endure the struggles and pain of today because this, too, will pass.  We can face our demons, look inside, confront that which is hard for us to face, lean away from anger as a secondary emotion and into our sadness, guilt, fear, for what it is.  We can do this knowing that it will not last, and that doing the inner work will move us through the pain more quickly and more fully than the anger block that we set up can ever.  It will do that because the anger is a lie.  It is hiding the real feelings underneath.  And until we get to those real feelings, we cannot heal them.

        I found this poem about change that I wanted to share with you:

Ø  On the Vanity of Earthly Greatness by Arthur Guiterman (forwarded by Gordon)

The tusks which clashed in mighty brawls

Of mastodons, are billiard balls

 

The sword of Charlemagne the Just

Is Ferric Oxide, known as rust

 

The grizzly bear, whose potent hug,

Was feared by all, is now a rug.

 

Great Caesar’s bust is on the shelf,

And I don’t feel so well myself.

 

All of these will pass.  But God’s love will remain.  We can rest in that truth.

So, is there a time for righteous anger?  Yes.  Jesus showed us that there was.  But I think we need to be very, very careful about when our anger is, indeed righteous and when it is “self-righteous” instead.  Does that mean we won’t get angry as a secondary emotion?  We will.  We are all human and we will.  But being able to step back, to own what is ours versus what is not, that is a start.  We are called into community, and community also means that we have to be very careful about how that anger is expressed.  Again, retaliation, abuse, passive aggressive actions and withdrawing should not be options for those committed to relationship, to community and to following God’s call for us.  Will we mess up?  Of course.  But that call to self-reflection will be there to help us once more. 

        Our feelings, even anger, are gifts because they call us to pay attention to what is really going on.  They call us to self-reflection, they call us into conversation, hopefully, with God.  The decisions to act out our feelings: these should take more time.  But even when we act out of our anger, the good news is always that God gives us another chance, more opportunities to learn, to grow and to choose differently the next time.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

 

Another very personal self-reflection: on hope

     I was watching MASH yesterday with my son.  He loves MASH and is leaving to return to school on Saturday, so we spent some time last evening watching a few reruns of this wonderful, wise program.  One of the episodes we watched was Dear Sis in which Father Mulcahy is basically narrating some of his time in Korea through the writing of a reflection letter to his sister.  The episode starts with an altercation between a patient who is flailing and being horrible to Margaret, refusing to accept the help of the nurses or anyone else.  Margaret calls for Father Mulcahy's help.  When he tries to help, the patient acts out towards the Father, saying he is not qualified to help or even deal with the patient and he punches the Father, hard.  In an unexpected moment of both self-defense and anger, Father Mulcahy punches the man back!  He then spends much of the episode dealing with that instinctual response.  He apologizes to the man, he tries to explain, but the man is basically a jerk in this episode.  He continues to attack, verbally, the Father, saying he is in no way a holy man and must have gone to seminary at the YMCA.  The patient cannot see his own actions as having been part of the problem, and he has no ability to offer grace or forgiveness.  Father Mulcahy just accepts into himself all the attacks that come from this man.  He leaves the hospital room, goes outside where Hawkeye finds him and the interaction between the two is as follows:

Father: You know, I used to coach boxing at the CYO. I told my boys it built character.

Hawkeye: Father, why don’t you stop punching yourself on the chin.  Pick on someone your own size!

Father: I’m Christ’s representative. “Suffer the little children to come unto me.  Do unto others… I’m not just supposed to say that stuff.  I’m supposed to do it.

Hawkeye: All you’re supposed to do is the best you can.

Father: Some "best!"

Hawkeye: Best is best!  Look.  Suppose you were sitting here right now with somebody who had done his best and was feeling lousy about it.  You’d let ‘em off the hook, wouldn’t you?

Father (still reeling in feelings of guilt and shame): Sure I would.  And if the hook didn’t work, I’d probably try an uppercut.

Hawkeye: Father, get off your back.

Father: It isn’t just that.  I don’t seem to make a difference here.  I hang around on the edge of effectiveness.  And when I do step in, I really step in.

Hawkeye: Look.  This place has made us all nuts.  Why should you be any different?   We don’t sleep. We don’t eat.  And every day a truck dumps a load of bloody bodies at our feet.  Okay so you hit someone.  We have to stand here and watch so much misery we’re lucky we don’t all join hands and walk into a chopper blade.

        I found myself struck deeply by this conversation both from a personal place, but also from a communal place. While we are not living through a literal war, in many ways we ARE living through a metaphoric one.  Our war is against this tiny little virus who has many tricks up its sleeve, and who appears to be using them all.  We are in a constant state of stress, of fear.  Will we be the ones to get it next?  How will it affect our families?  Our loved ones?  Our communities?  We think we see the end of the pandemic, and then something else happens and it goes on with more violence and damage than before.  At this point I think few of us have avoided losing a loved one to this disease.  Even fewer have remained unaffected by the illness.  As Hawkeye said, "We don't sleep.  We don't eat.  And every day a truck dumps a load of bodies at our feet." Holding on to hope right now is difficult.  Everyone remains tense, many are grieving, people are fearful and anxious, and everyone has moments when they are less able to act their best, to be their best.  We are all making mistakes and the results, because during this stress it is difficult to step back or to take things with the ease we otherwise might, are broken relationships, torn communities, and a fractured world.  

    We see this in so many places in our world: deepening anger, acting out, rage, violence.  We also see it, more personally, in the church.  There have been numerous articles written, including one in the Wall Street Journal (article) saying that church communities in general are experiencing a return of only about 50% - 70% of their people because of COVID.  Many of our churches are simply having to close as a result of this loss of membership.  Churches are learning to adapt, but pastors' burn-out level is extraordinary right now.  That, too, seems to be the subject of many articles crossing my desk recently: the mass exodus of pastors from church leadership.

    Why are they leaving?  There are many reasons.  One is that things are simply very stressful.  Pastors are having to learn and even create new ways of doing church during fluctuating, changing situations when we can meet, then can't meet, then can meet again but with differences, with limitations, with restrictions.  We are having to discover or create new ways to connect people and to stay connected to our people.  These new learnings take time and energy and most of us were already working more than full time at our jobs.  We are navigating a new world, one that changes monthly if not weekly and sometimes even by the day.  This is hard and we don't know where the next change will come, where we will need to adapt next.  Our congregants struggle with these changes too, so not only are we carrying our own stress, our own need to roll with the punches, but we are also called on, constantly, to be the face and voice of calm assurance, of hope, and of promise for our members.  We are called on to navigate the conflicts that are arising as we try to sort through these changes: some want masks, others don't.  Some are pro-vaccine, others aren't.  Some say we open to all, regardless; others say we need to limit who and how people can attend.  Not only do we need to be making these decisions, but we need to be reassuring and comforting those who would have wished we'd made different choices.  That in itself is exhausting.  Add to this that members are acting out their own fear, stress and anger by attacking those in leadership positions.  Pastors are easy targets and are receiving more than their fair-share of blame and anger.  

    But I think the story above about Father Mulcahy points to another reason why pastors are leaving.  We are not immune to the stress of this situation.  And we are not perfect.  I've written before about the unrealistic expectations that people have for their pastors, so I won't go into the details of this here again.  But the bottom line is we aren't more than human.  We are human.  In the Presbyterian church we recognize that pastors are not even more "holy" than other people.  All of us, every single person on this planet, has a call, and for all of us that call includes learning to be more loving, forgiving and gracious.  As Jesus said, "I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners."  We are all on a learning curve, on a path of growth.  And that means all of us will fall, will stumble, will make mistakes.  But the expectations for pastors remain very high.  When you combine huge levels of stress with the expectations that we will somehow be better, navigate the struggles better, walk through this terrible time with more grace, more patience, more wisdom and insight than everyone else, the reality is that we will disappoint people.  We will make mistakes.  We will, at times, fail.  And when we fail, it is not just our parishioners who struggle to forgive us.  We struggle, deeply, to forgive ourselves.  As Father Mulcahy said, "Do unto others… I’m not just supposed to say that stuff.  I’m supposed to do it."  But sometimes in stress when someone hits us, we won't be able to step back and respond with grace.  Sometimes we will, instinctively and without thought, punch back.  And when our apologies are not "enough"?  When they are not accepted?  When, like Father Mulcahy, we are sneered at, accused of being "fakes" and told that we are simply horrible at what we do?  Well, we have a hard time not taking those comments in.  

       And then it goes even deeper.  Again, as Father Mulcahy said, "It isn’t just that.  I don’t seem to make a difference here.  I hang around on the edge of effectiveness.  And when I do step in, I really step in."  There are times when it is hard to see that what we do makes a positive difference, especially in a time when affirmation is little and far between, and when the world around us continues to crumble, to tear, to struggle, no matter how hard we work.  We remember every time we have made a mistake.  We remember, with a voice that yells in our heads pretty constantly, every time we should have responded differently, should have seen things we didn't, should have acted when we failed to do so, should have, would have, could have...  It is hard, at times, to avoid focusing solely on the things we should have done and the things we shouldn't have done and to instead see any good we might have done.  It is hard, in these times, to hold on to a sense of purpose, of meaning, and most especially, of hope.

    I am grateful that when I have hit those lows, I feel that God has, every single time, stepped up and stepped in with reassurance and grace for me.  This weekend I hit one of those bottoms where my very career was in question for me once again.  It doesn't help that a member in my household is going  through the usual pastor's-kid, teenage rebellion thing and is telling me, with some regularity, that religion causes nothing but damage and that my job not only does no good, but is actually harmful to the world.  While I have my own arguments against this, it still hits hard and I do sit with their words, wondering how much is true.  Additionally, I'm coming off a very challenging month where we were struggling with family health crises and the demands on my time between family needs and my job during Advent and Christmas were frankly too much.  I was, like Father Mulcahy, very much in the "I don't seem to make a difference here... And when I do step in, I just seem to make mistakes" mentality.

      But three things happened for me, right in a row, all converging at the same time.  The first was seeing the MASH episode where Father Mulcahy's words resonated so deeply with my own feelings.  Seeing his struggle when the character does so much good in the series was a gift and reminder that we can't always see the good we do, we are simply called to do the best we can and trust that God will take our best and infuse it with grace.  Not everyone will be able to forgive our errors: the soldier in the MASH episode never did forgive Father Mulcahy.  But, as we know, that lack of forgiveness hurts the one hanging onto the grudge most of all.  That is a choice another can make.  One we cannot change.  All we can do is be aware of our own errors, apologize, and do our best not to repeat them. 

    The second thing that happened for me was that an individual took the time to tell me that something I had said to her had been life-changing and had put her on a different path forward, one with hope, joy and amazing possibility.  Without betraying this individual's confidence or situation, I see the change.  And I am grateful to have been allowed to be part of that.  

    The third thing that happened needs a little more explanation.  I've been feeling strongly that the most important part of my job right now has been and continues to be giving hope.  Even when I have not felt it myself, I have felt deeply called, impelled even, to be the bearer of hope during this time of extreme stress, confusion and pain.  In every bible study, every meeting of our anti-racism group, and in many of our committees and small group meetings, then, my voice has been the voice trumpeting hope in the face of anger, pain and despair.  That has been my job and my call for this last year and a half.  As times have darkened, I have felt this even more strongly.  Recently, then, I added into our worship services a "moment of hope" where I share a positive story, a story of someone doing good, being kind, making a beautiful difference, even in the face of these difficult and painful times.  Again, I feel the deep importance of being that voice of hope, even when I cannot summon it for myself.  With that back-drop in mind, every epiphany we do an exercise at my church where we pass out paper stars that have spiritual disciplines and gifts written on them.  No two stars are the same each year, and each person picks one out of a basket.  Out of all of the stars that I could have chosen, the one that I picked, the one that came to me, was "hope."  While I usually am a bit of a cynic when it comes to the chance that a word would come to each person that was exactly the right word at exactly the right time, I felt an electric shock run through me when I saw that word on my star.  Yes, my focus and my call has been centered on hope.  And that star was a reminder that that hope is there for me as well: offered to me, even when I am struggling, and even when I cannot see if what I do makes any difference at all.  The star was a both a reminder of my call right now, and a promise that hope is there for me, too.

    I would wish the same for all of you: that you would find and hold hope during this very difficult, very challenging time.  Practice kindness. And look for where God is: where there is light, joy, love, grace, forgiveness, mercy, and, above all, hope.